July 29, 1869 – May 19, 1946
Booth Tarkington was quite famous during his life and won the Pulitzer Prize more than once — a rare feat. He was part of something of a Hoosier Renaissance of literature during the early 1900s, but like his fellow authors of that era, at least one of whom is also buried at this cemetery, his fame didn’t really survive past his death.
His novel, the Magnificent Ambersons, was adapted by Orson Welles in his follow-up to Citizen Kane, and its association with Welles — and its well-known reputation as a case of studio interference with an auteur’s vision — has made the film’s fame live on. In that way Tarkington’s fame does as well.
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